More People Who Are Bad

Friends, I am really upset. Due to a cascade of screw-ups, some mine, some GoDaddy's, my suburbanmatron.com domain expired without my knowing and was scooped up by some garbagey company who stalks expiring domains so they can buy them and redirect them to ads for cheap viagra. So now my links all over the internet are broken. Unless you are in the market for some cheap viagra.

GoDaddy is supposed to "park" a domain when it is in the final stages of expiring. That is, when you go there, you see a GoDaddy page that lets you know something is up. But my domain worked fine--I updated this blog on the 14th--and then all of a sudden, it was whisked away.

This business of buying up expiring domains is a whole shady corner of the internet. The guy who got mine is a 21 year-old who lives in his parents' basement in Chicago. He offered to sell it back to me for $5,500.

Think of all the boner pills that would buy him.

Or don't think of it.

So, I don't even know. Any advice or ideas you have are welcome. I'm left with the plan of trying to continue to get my correct links out through facebook and twitter, though I know this only reaches a small part of my readers. I mean, it's not like this domain was my livelihood, but I'd been building it for over four years.

Maybe I'll still get it back. I can't think that the traffic generated by people google searching my blog will generate this domain-stalker any real money. Certainly not enough to live on his own and maybe kiss a girl one day. We'll see.

Makes me way madder than my purse being stolen.

I will still be here, and if you have me linked on your blog and are seeing this post, please change your link to the URL that is up top, www.suburbanmatron.blogspot.com. And follow me on fb and twitter and all that so I can keep you in the loop. And if you are following SubMat on fb, maybe share this news with any friends you have who are also readers. Sniff.

Meanwhile I'm going to go do some emotional eating. But first I'll favor you with an emoticon.

xoxox

Mean Streets

CSI: My Neighborhood

Y'all! Yesterday afternoon I parked my car up at our neighborhood clubhouse and took Hank to his tennis lesson right at the adjacent courts. My neighbor arrived a little after me, and we were both watching the kids' play for about thirty minutes. We got back to our cars to find our windows smashed and our purses gone.

Damn!

I'm usually a little more wily about not leaving valuables visible in the car, even though I've never had this happen before. When I'm parking up there to go play tennis or go to a swim meet for hours, I never leave anything in the car. But as I was taking Hank to the courts, I ran back in and got my purse, thinking that I might run to the store during his lesson. Then I left my purse on the front seat and watched him play instead. For such a short time. Dumb. Dumb!

What the guy got was my wallet, but not my ID or check/debit card, which were in a separate wristlet that I ALSO LEFT IN THE CAR but that he didn't see. But that wallet filled with miscellaneous junk and instantly-canceled credit cards was inside my beloved Marc Jacobs Sophia bag. Oh double damn.

I am a major purse person and I bought that bag in a time when we had actual money instead of a house, two kids, and a video game company. I haven't carried it a lot over the years, it's been on light duty. They don't make that bag anymore, and a quick look at ebay shows that the authentic bags available now have the years of wear on them that my bag didn't. Because I kept it in an argon-filled chamber behind bulletproof glass. So it is kind of irreplaceable. I feel like I'm a little too hung-up on it, but I'm feeling a little hung-up on it. It's maddening because I know it's been thrown away by now, unless the bad guy has the good sense to list it on ebay. I'll be keeping a lookout.

The nice sheriff deputies came and then the CID guys came and got one good fingerprint off my neighbor's door. There is a security camera at the clubhouse that should have captured the whole thing perfectly; they were downloading the footage last night. Hank was with me, and he was very troubled/fascinated by the whole thing. "Mom, I'm really mad that somebody did this!" he said. Me too buddy.

The deputy said to me, "Ma'am, don't let this steal your sunshine." I assured him that my vast sunshine reservoirs were untapped. If we ever did drill into my stored sunshine, it would go a long way toward ending our Dependence on Foreign Oil.

So, whatever, the window is getting fixed today. And the happy thing of the day is that Matt is taking me somewhere this weekend to celebrate our anniversary. I don't know where. Betty is coming this afternoon to keep the kids, and we'll be gone until Monday morning. I know it involves driving somewhere a medium distance away. I asked Matt what I should bring, and he said, "Bring a swimsuit, some good walking shoes, and some nice-enough clothes." I am going to go upstairs now and ponder the "nice-enough" part. Nice enough for a cockfight? A coronation? We'll see!

Have a good weekend! I will report.